Sharp
by oorosco
Summary: 3 Chapters are up to entice. Plan to put up 1 chapter every few days... I'm basically done with this fic but i need an ending... perhaps a sequel is in call. Either way, opinions are appreciated! This has gotten really good reviews on old bungie site!
1. Chapter 1:Time of Peace, And No Fighting

_________________________________Chapter 1: Time of Peace, And No Fighting

1400 hours, September 18, 2552(Military Calendar)/ Pillar of Autumn, In slip space.

The Commander of the 101st Spec-ops squadron, Lucas ran his fingers through his newly grown dark hair, it wasn't long because of military regulations, but it was longer then a buzz cut length. He was wearing a tank top along with sweat pants, he was heading to the gym, and he didn't want to be out of shape once they exited slip space. Taking a left he ended up facing a bulky door with no noise leaking through it. He walked up and it automatically opened for him, when I opened up the noise of men grunting, yells, footsteps came through along with the sound of metal being hit against metal. He walked in and his feet were more or less slightly absorbed by the mats laid through out the room. He went to his work out routine joining his men.

Sergeant Joe of the 24th marine company, he was using a tread mill when he saw Commander Lucas come in. Commander Lucas was a slightly pale Mexican descendant and was extremely fit; he came to the gym often. Joe on the other hand wasn't as strong as Lucas, but he was more of a man of intelligence. "Hey, welcome to the gym, you're a bit late!" yelled Joe to Lucas across the gym, he simply smiled and kept walking to where ever he was going to. Finishing his run he saw Private Bean as everyone called him in the corner telling jokes to surrounding men. Bean was the Company's clown, he was nearly useless on the battle field, but he was good at lightening up the men's spirits. Smiling he got off the black carpet and wiped off some sweat going down his forehead with his arm and went to his next station.

Sharp was jogging around the gym; he preferred to jog on the real ground rather then on a thread mill. Sharp was on his fourth mile, and only needed one more lap to make it 5, and then he'd be finished. After running it he slowed down and went to the silver water fountain. He bent down feeling sweat run down his face and fall off. He took a couple sips, and then splashed some water over his face and went towards the bench to sit down for little while. Sharp was the crack shot with the sniper rifle, and was only rivaled by Mary, of the spec-ops team, that's why he'd received the name of "Sharp" and now everyone called him Sharp, even on his military forms and his dog tag it read "Sharp".

Staff Sergeant Marvin Mobuto, nick named Beast was using one of the many bench presses in the gym; he had 280 pounds on, and was on his fifth set. If there was a title for tough guy in a squadron, it'd be Beast; he had the biggest muscles that aren't from steroids you'd most likely ever see. The weights were secured in case of some kind of tilt in the space ship or something like it. Suddenly Bean popped up above his bar, and grinned, "Hey, when you going to finish, big boy?" Beast never found any of the man's jokes extremely funny; instead he often felt the need to snap the guy's neck. He dropped his weights and they automatically were caught by the safety device. Huffing as he pulled himself up, he then grabbed a white rag off of a nearby pedestal. Wiping his sweat off he threw it back and started to jog around the gym just like Sharp was doing. Beast was 6'5 ft. and could run the fastest out of the whole spec-ops squad. Their time though at the gym was going to end in a couple minutes so he picked up his pace to a sprint around the gym.

*

"Ha! Man that bartender must have been pissed off after he found out that he hadn't gotten the better part of the deal when he got pissed on!" Exclaimed one of the men from the 24th marine company, laughing from the joke that Bean had just told the men, Sharp was sitting in the corner with Lucas and Beast, they were the highest ranked officers of the room, Sharp being second highest and Beast being third. Both were veterans from Harvest, one of the first places that the Covenant had attacked. Sharp rubbed his fore head and leaned back against the wall since he was sitting on an over turned crate.

Lucas felt the need to light a cigar, but held himself back knowing that it against regulations, but he decided to take one out and chew on it. He glanced over at the carved out of stone face of Sharp and then at Beast's eyes which were not to be seen since he was in just the right angle of the shade to have them sort of disappear. He pushed off the crate and walked to the center of the men, "Guys! Everyone, we're exiting Slipspace in a matter of a day, I want everyone rested and ready to fight, we don't know what we're going to see, but I'm willing to bet my left ass cheek that the Covenant are one of them! So I'm expecting some kind of mission, whether it's boarding or simply protecting the Autumn, I want us ready to do it, so go get some sleep and we'll do some exercises tomorrow!" Lucas felt like the father of his squadron, yet he'd seen a couple of them fall with bullets plunging deep into their bodies, and he'd sent a few to die as well, but that was part of being a commander.

Sharp looked as the men passed one by one, their squadron wasn't big, only a total of ten men, but they'd started out with 19, nearly half of which had died protecting humanity throughout the years. He glanced at Mary, who liked to be called Mar by everyone but him, was towards the back of the line. She was the only female in the squad, and as she was about to go out the door, he quickly sprang up and followed her through. He caught up to her in a second or two. "Hey, so how are things going Mary?" Sharp asked once he was at her pace walking next to her through the "tunnels" of the Autumn; all of them were small in order to get as many things into one ship as possible so open space wasn't exactly a luxury the humans could afford.

"Lame, like usual, Sharp, you don't know how to charm a lady at all, you're good with a gun, but not exactly a shot with the ladies." She smiled and punched him on his left shoulder. He smiled and kept walking, over the years he'd developed a friend ship off of their "rivalry" in the sniper realm. Mary was 29 and he was 34. He loved the way she walked, it wasn't easy to describe, but it wasn't the fancy shmancy lady walk, but it wasn't a male walk either. He liked her dark hair which seemed to keep itself straight for he had never seen her combing it. He liked the fact that she wasn't a blond; he hated how for some reason certain women felt the need to dye their hair blond. But thing was, he was attracted to her, but she wasn't so much to him. Sure they were friends, but nothing more. They walked up to the door and it opened almost instantly for them. They walked into the barracks and Sharp jumped up onto his bunk bed while Mary went towards the back of the barracks to her bunk bed. Sharp looked down across the room and saw a small light on.

Sharp pitied Private Ian, he had a newly wedded wife and a two month old son, he would write to his family every night in his little notebook under the light of his flashlight. He was from the 24th Marine Company. The barracks that he was in was shared by the 101st spec-ops squad, the 24th, and the 19th ODST platoon. Of course it wasn't all of them, but it was a portion of them. Sharp turned over on the inch thick mattress and tucked himself even more and finally fell asleep.

Lucas was walking to the barracks where his men were at, but he couldn't help but wonder if the humans were going to win the war. They'd lost all of the outer colonies, and their inner colonies were being devoured by the huge Covenant beast. Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if Reach had fallen, last that he'd seen of it was when it was under attack. Coming up to the barracks door it slid open for him and he jumped onto his bunk bed. He almost instantly fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2: Wake Up Soldier, It’s time!

Chapter 2: Wake Up Soldier, It's time!

0110 Hours, September 19, 2552(military Calendar)/ Slip Space exit Vector

Lucas felt a shudder run through the space ship, and knew they were out of slip space. He heard the boarding alarm screaming through the whole space ship, he was already getting into his HAVOC armor, so were the rest of the Spec-ops squad men, but the 24th marine company was a bit slower, most of them were greenhorns. He put on his helmet to hear Captain Keyes. "Commander Lucas, you are to immediately report to the Weapon Technology Research Center. I will debrief you as you go there. You're being joined with the 24th Marine Company, the 79th ODST platoon, 106th ODST Company, 74th Marine Company and the 93rd ODST platoon. Time is of the essence." There was a pause and then the Captain continued. "We've located a ring called Halo that is thought to be a weapon of immense power, so if it is, we don't want the Covenant taking control of it. There's a Brigade of 5,000 Covenant troops. I want you and your men to take control of a nearby structure, approximately two and a half hours ahead of Covenant, that is the place that they're heading for; and chances are that it's the control room. Instructions will be handed down to you by Cortana. I've already notified Lieutenant Smith of the 79th, Captain Keyes out." Lucas cursed, he didn't like being notified of such things at the last second, but it wasn't up to him.

"Everyone, I want you ready now, or if not run to the WTRC while putting on your armor let's move, we have limited time!" While he was jogging to the WTRC they were joined with the ODST's. When he went in to the room of the WTRC he saw an old man sweating slightly but still happy to see them for some reason.

The old man cleared his throat and then spoke, "Ok, now pay attention, these weapons are the top of the line weapons, here, you'll see the all new BR-55, it's still not in productive use, but I don't see why I can't give you guys out our prototypes. Here is the baby brother of the ME-5 grenade, all new ME-6CE grenade, the only new thing about it is that its damage radius is increased and can be set on a timer or remote detonation mode. Here is the new AS-9 shotgun; it can shoot at a rate of 12 shots per 10 seconds. Here is the brand new magnetic powered sniper rifle, it shoots silently, and can go a quarter mile further then its predecessor. Here is a regular good old reliable assault rifle, except for the fact that there are two new additions. First it has explosive rounds with more rounds per clip and auto-reload of four clips, and second it has a grenade launcher under its barrel, it can hold four grenades by itself alone. Here is the new NH-45 pistol, it's still a pistol but it can beat the hell out of anything as if it's a close ranged sniper rifle. And finally, my personal favorite, the all new Marine helmet, it includes the old things, but now it can support AI and has a better resolution camera along with a motion sensor up to 500 feet. It also contains a small air tank that refills itself automatically once in fresh air, it can hold up to ten minutes of air at a time." Letting it all sink in to the Marines the old weapon specialist was gleaming with pride, "so what do you guys think?"

Bean let out a whistle, but most of them knew better then to waste time, they all quickly grabbed weapons and started to head towards their departure zones. There'd be 14 Pelicans transporting them, they were filled with extra ammo to give them support.  
Ok, let's get moving! " Lieutenant Smith was prepping his ODST platoon as well, and within minutes they were running down to the hanger bay and the ODST platoon to their pods.

Sharp though stayed behind a while and finally went up to the old man, "Hey, Jimmy, don't' tell me you don't have a customized Sniper rifle for me, because I sure as hell will need one now." Sharp said to the Jimmy.

"Sharp, you're going to make me die one day from over working on your sniper rifles, but ok, here's your brand new sniper. This baby will keep you happy for a bit, it holds 10 rounds per clip, has auto load for 5 clips, and has the Magnetic acceleration method. And it has extra Armor penetrating bullets with a couple super explosive clips. Those clips will lodge themselves into a tank and disable it if you shoot them into the right spot. The armor piercing rounds though have a high chance of going up to five Elites." Sharp ran up snatched the rifle and quickly shook the old man's hand.

"Thank you Jimmy, I owe you one." Sharp then rushed out through the door with the ammo box and the "extra" new rifle.

"You owe me more then one Sharp" Jimmy mumbled started to go to the escape pod, knowing that he was almost no use fighting, he'd lived too many years to be foolish enough to think that they'd keep the Autumn safe.


	3. Chapter 3: Departure, Highway to Hell

Chapter 3: Departure, Highway to Hell

0130 hours, September 19, 2552(Military Calendar)/Pelican, 100 Kilometers from Halo

Within minutes they were all on board the Pelicans and the ODST on their pods. While Lucas had been selecting his weapons and running, Cortana had been debriefing him on what was going on. She had said that there'd be an AI crystal in the port of the Pelican, as he'd checked, there it was, and not only that, because of his new helmet he could put the AI in. After that the AI, Creton, informed him of the specifics of the structure that they were being sent to encamp.

Sharp was sitting between the back door and Mary on one of the Pelicans. He glanced to the left to look at Mary, but she had been looking in his general area at the same moment. Their eyes locked, but Sharp tore away and decided to make sure all of his weapons and garments were attached properly.

Mary nearly let out a groan; she was only in the UNSC because she felt the need to prove that women could help out just as men could. Since the moment she'd seen Sharp, she'd liked him, he didn't have a big ego. She hated that in men, the other thing was that he was intelligent but not exactly a public speaker, so in some ways he was shy. She turned her focus away from him though for the moment, she needed to keep in focus that she wasn't here to flirt but to kill.

*

"Ok, I want Locus Anti-tank mines spread through out the field in front of us on remote detonation. Beast, you're in charge of making how ever many entrances we have into only one with the rest completely blocked. Sharp, you're in charge of sniper team. I have group Alpha, Charles you have group Beta, Beast you have group Gamma, and Sharp, you have group delta. Alpha and Gamma are up front, Lieutenant Smith you have group Tango, Delta is on support duty, and Beta is heavy duty weapons and the planting of Lotus mines, now get moving!" Lucas had been speaking into his microphone in his helmet that was broadcasting to all of his men. The Pelicans were set down for the time being, but were going to be used as support from the air.

"There's a lot of Chatter on the Covenant battle net, but I did manage to pick up that there's a group of six Banshees coming to us to scout us out. ETA of the Covenant Brigade is in one hour and twenty three minutes." Lucas hated AI constructs for the most parts, even the smart ones, but Creton was a "dumb" AI, meaning that his emotions were kept to a minimal setting, and he would speak without much emotion, just plainly in an un-human way. Sighing Lucas scratched his chin which was covered by several small prickly hairs. They fell under the weight of his fingers, but they still prickled him.

"There are six Banshees coming our way, I want them neutralized before I can even say 'hello' to them!"

"Sir, we'll have them neutralized before you can even think of them, SIR!" Said Warrant Officer, Frank Okinawa, one of the further Pelicans controlled by Warrant Officer Frank lifted from the ground and lifted up, it was followed by seven other Pelicans. The rest had to stay behind and have their supplies unloaded. The Pelicans stopped hovering in the bright blue sky, and screamed away into the distance where their HUD's were being set by the AI.

Warrant Officer Frank was in a cocky mood, he'd just won a game of poker, which he didn't normally do. Pushing on the throttle the Pelican accelerated towards the orange arrow that was guiding him and the other banshees to their foes. The banshees wouldn't be too much of a problem for a force of eight Pelicans. He scanned all of his readings on his dash board, seeing nothing wrong he continued on. The Pelicans were flying in a Delta formation, Frank was in the front of it. He took off the safety of the trigger as his distance from the targets became '1000 meters'. He looked at the amount of missiles he had in his load, he had thirteen of them. "Want to take them out with guns or missiles?" Frank questioned the rest of the men flying with him.

"Let's try to do this quickly and effectively, one round of missiles followed by us cleaning them up with out gun fire, if you're taking heavy fire, do what you need to do, just don't lose your Pelican." Chief Warrant Officer Jake Fryer. A number of acknowledgement lights blinked green. "Spread into a two row line, once you set off your missiles get out of the way for the people behind you!" Everyone did so, and was in a rectangular formation, off in the distance a group of Banshees came into view.

'Yimenee was the Elite in charge of the Banshees flying at the Pelicans; he looked into his screen and saw the formation of Pelicans emerge into view. Smiling, he spoke, "Keep it loose formation, they're going to try to send a wave of their pathetic excuse of missiles at us. Do your best to dodge them, do any maneuver you need to lose them. Fire off a set of your fuel rod cannon shots to keep them busy from wiping us out with their guns!" In return the formation of the Banshees widened until it didn't look like a. He smiled at the thought of the twisted heaps of metal the Pelicans would become. He pushed his throttle further, eager to get the first kill, everyone else followed his suit.

'Yimenee saw the Pelicans come into range, waiting for them to fire off their primitive missiles. He saw four small white specs drop out of the Pelicans; he shot of his fuel rod cannon as the missiles raced at him. Looking through the camera he waited until it was only thirty meters away and did a barrel roll, just barely dodging the missile. His shot had missed as well, but the heat melted a portion of the Pelicans wing. The Pelican was still stable though, He glanced down at the status report and saw that one of his brethren had been shot down; growling in hatred he cast a look onto the Pelican that he'd shot earlier with a different sort of hatred, the one that he wished he wanted to squeeze-your-heart-in-his-hands one. He started to go after him when to his surprise a second missile started to chase him, the Missile was extremely close, having barely any time, he attempted to barrel role, but the missile touched the tip of his wing and blew up. The Banshee got pushed to the side, and then spun around, and onto his view came his brother 'Regazen getting torn apart by the bullets of the barbaric humans. He howled in rage as he tried to regain the control of his Banshee.

"YEHAAA!" Yelled Frank as he shot down the second Banshee, he saw the banshee turn into a ball of flames and fall down to the ground. He made sure that his right wing which had been skimmed by a fuel rod cannon was ok, which it was. He checked his engines which were all A-OK.

'Yimenee finally had full control of his engines and had now four Banshees left under his command; they'd managed to shoot down one of the Pelicans which were now on the ground in a ball of flame. "Regroup! Everyone, pay attention, don't put shame upon your families! Keep firing, don't give them slack!" With that 'Yimenee started to shoot off bursts from his plasma gun and he was shooting off with his fuel rod cannon as fast as possible. He managed to hit on of the Pelicans, it fell down from the force of the Impact and then got hit by another shot in the nose making it tilt into a 'wheelie' but it didn't go down, the Pilot was determined to stay alive. He glanced at his HUD corner, and saw that he and only one more Banshee was left… He felt like his men were being blown out silently like candles. He was shooting a strafe of plasma at the badly damaged Pelican when the other Pelicans blew up his last man and were now starting to shoot at him.

Frank checked his status, it wasn't good, but he was lucky, he was surprised that he hadn't been downed by now. His Pelican though wasn't too fortunate, it was running on only a 29% operational status, he felt his precious baby shudder with every second it stayed in the air, and he knew she was suffering. He was starting to turn his Pelican around and leave the last Banshee to the rest of his team; he didn't want to be the second Pelican down. Just then he saw a purple object flying at him.

'Yimenee ran down a status check, engine was running at minimal capacity, his left wing was down as well. He pushed his dying engines to max, but the Pelicans had already set their sights onto him, Shots were being fired out of them at him. He only pushed his throttle harder. He set his shields onto overload; he fired off another shot at the partially damaged pelican. This time, once again, it hit the Pelican, melting into it. The exterior of the Banshee was now completely falling away, now the bullets were hitting his shields, which were immediately taken out. He felt a bullet plunge into his calf, and then into his shoulder blade. Refusing to give in the pain he pushed further, the Pelican tried to veer out of the way, but he'd been to close when he'd shot the fuel rod, and now he was mere feet from the Pelican; another set of bullets enter his back, and one entered his neck. With his last moment in the physical realm, he was happy when he ran into the Pelican taking it out with him.

Chief Warrant Officer Jake cursed as he saw the Banshee that hadn't been shot down fly straight into Frank's Pelican. He heard the yell of Frank just before the Banshee ran into him. There was a puff of smoke and a small explosion, when suddenly he saw a Pelican emerge. "HOLY SHIT! How am I alive, god must really be on my side today!" yelled out Frank with joy as his nearly crippled Pelican kept on flying back to base. The Banshee had blown up from the last bullet only mere inches away from the Pelican. Luckily for Frank, he'd followed the regulations for once of keeping the cockpit door closed and the blast didn't reach him. The Pelican was truly a sight to behold, it was barely moving, and most of its back area was completely annihilated.

Frank ran a quick on his Pelican and realized how lucky he truly was, his Pelican had survived with a complete hole in the middle of its back. Not only that, the fact that the engines still worked was a miracle of god. He was starting to think that he was going to become a Catholic.


	4. Chapter 4: Hold on to your pants, it’s g

Chapter 4: Hold on to your pants, it's gonn'a be a hard one!

0452 Hours September 19, 2552(Military Calendar)/ Un-known system, In Alpha Base on Ring Construct Halo

The structure shuddered beneath Lucas's feet as another volley of wraith shots hit the slowly melting walls of the base, cursing. "Get your asses moving we need to take those wraiths out!"

He heard a bit of static and then, "We hear you; I'm going to take those bastards out, Charles out!" Looking above him to the upper level of the white structure he saw thirty rockets pop up and head towards the Covenant below, a few of the rockets veered slightly off course and blew up in the lines of the Covenant, sending bodies and weapons flying into the air along with detonations of plasma grenades that'd been triggered by the rockets. But the other rockets hit the Wraiths straight on. Three of the four wraiths that had been hit blew up, one had managed to survive, but then blew up after ten seconds as if in a second thought about dying, taking out surrounding Covenant troops. Satisfied that the threat had been taken out he turned his attention to the next problem, the numerous Banshees that had just recently shown up.

Sharp had just finished reloading his next set of clips for his sniper rifle when he saw the last of the wraiths blow up; he felt the satisfying click as the clips slid in place. It'd been all hell for the past ten minutes, the Brigade had shown up marching in the horizon with hundreds of ghosts, many wraiths, many of which he'd taken out along with the rocket jockeys, until they'd gotten smarter and started to hang back, making it much harder to take them out, and Sharp had wanted to conserve his explosive rounds too. But those had been just taken out by a salvo of rockets. He looked into the sky and looked at the surviving Banshees taking runs at him and his men along with the other groups. The eight remaining Pelicans couldn't do much, the other six had been taken out, and Lucas didn't want them losing their means of transportation.

He counted a total of thirty banshees coming in groups of three at the base. They'd sustained many casualties from the Banshees, and Sharp was growing tired of the steadily increasing 'casualties:' screen. It was at 123 now, which wasn't exactly a comforting number. "Charles, we need to have the Banshees over here taken out, can you help us?" Sharp yelled into his mike as he took aim through his sniper rifle and shot an elite leader of a squadron straight through his eye, penetrating through the back of his head and hit a grunt in its head.

"This is Charles, I have five men coming over to you, they'll send out a welcome mat for your guests, Charles out." Sharp turned his acknowledgement light on, and continued to snipe in the small world of the scope. His men around him were doing the same except for one who was telling them when the Banshees would come for a flyby on the snipers.

"Watch out! We got incoming!" Yelled Private Bean as he tried to scamper under the cover of a protective hangover; his suit was followed by the rest of the men. Bean though, in such frenzy slammed his head into the top of the wall and slammed back wards onto the ground. He put his hand on his head and tried to get up but only tripped from his dizziness. Sharp was about to run to him and get him under cover when a burst of plasma hit the funny man dead in the chest. He stared down at his chest in disbelief and started to fall down onto his knees. But before he died he managed to crawl to Sharp and clutch at his chest, "Please…" coughing blood, "help me." Then the privates eyes rolled back revealing the blank whiteness of the back of them to Sharp, he fell back onto his back dying, except for that no one had laughed at the man's last appearance. He'd pretended to die so many times before to amuse everyone, but this time he really did die, ironically enough, in the same fashion he'd pretend to die.

Beast was covering the area just in front of one of the entrances that had been left unblocked; he had set up a half circle about ten meters out. They'd used several barrels that they found throughout the building to make a wall. Beast was reloading his Assault rifle when a plasma shot buzzed towards him, he ducked in the nick of time, but Sergeant Douglas hadn't been so fortunate, he got hit in the side of his head. Blood spilled down in a sticky form, but Beast simply lowered the man to the ground and ripped off his dog tag and continued fighting "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE! Get your fat fingers to pull on the trigger, or learn to aim because it sure as hell doesn't seem like you're shooting anything." Beast yelled as he emptied half a clip into the chest and neck of an Elite who had jumped on top of a barrel and roared his battle cry just to get killed. Beast took out a grenade, un pinned it and threw it as far back into the Covenant as he could.

A couple silver explosions popped up as the plasma grenades detonated from the fragment grenade in a nearby radius. He kept firing his clips into the lines, but he wasn't dumb, he knew they were being steadily advanced upon; hell they were already able to hop onto his barrels. He thought about retreat, and looked at the casualty number, 'Casualties: 169' He decided that was a decent amount lost, "Ok, in three we're moving, so pack your bags and get ready for a vacation!" Yelled Beast turning his head back into the battle, he wondered how many Covenant bastards he could kill before the three minutes were up on his timer which had been set up by the AI who was constantly listening on the chatter and helping people out.

Lieutenant Smith was on the other side of the building guarding the entrance with his ODST Platoon and another ODST. "I'm running low throw me a new set of clips!" Yelled Private McGrath, he was soon satisfied, "Thanks!" and continued firing. Smith was shooting with his BR-55 at an Elite who was trying to go for cover because of his low shields, but he didn't make it. Smith shot one more burst into the elite and it fell, arms flailing onto a small grunt crushing it under its weight. He noticed how far the Covenant had advanced, his squadron had started to fire at the Covenant troops when they were 100 meters away, now they were a mere fifteen away. He doubted that they'd be able to hold out much longer. His guess was that they'd simply have to close the door on them, so they couldn't come in, but then they could always tamper with crap and might find a weaker enforced area to break into after the fight. Pushing the ideas out of his mind he shot a burst right into head of a Grunt then two bursts at a Jackal since his first one hit his shield. He kept shooting at a few of them, but that was when he saw something that terrified him, two hunters.

Lucas was on the second level of the strange building; luckily it happened to be designed in the funkiest way. The whole building was in a shape of a Pyramid, it was in a gigantic Valley, but the best part was that there was enough room for everyone to stay covered and still fire upon the Covenant; there were three major floors to the building. On the top floor was Sharp, Third was Charles, he was on the second, and the bottom was being covered by Beast and Smith. And each floor with the exception of the top floor with sharp, were covered by a ceiling making it like a balcony that you could shoot out of, except for that Sharp would constantly harassed by the Banshees that were flying around the top of the Building like Vultures that just spotted a dying animal, but Charles had sent a few Rocket Jockeys to neutralize the threat. His team was focused on bringing things down with support fire from battle rifles to the NH-45. "This is Lieutenant Smith, I've just sighted a pair of hunters, they need to be neutralized, they have their flanks guarded by Jackals, I don't see how we can get them, we need sniper cover or something, but we need to kill them!"

"Roger that, I'll take them out, heading over right now." Sharp was still under the hangover as the last Banshee was passing he had heard the request. After its pass he sprinted to the side where Smith was covering and crawled towards the edge. "Damn." Sharp hated completely leaning over the edge, it was extremely frightening, the fall was a long one, about twenty sixty meters up, about 200 feet. He hated how tall the structure was, but hell he had no choice in the matter. He put his eye up to the scope. He immediately saw a large parting form as two hunters were heading towards the group. He tried looking for the bastards orange spot and then was rewarded but didn't shoot; it had been a half a second exposure, when beast would move further he'd keep his head extra low allowing for Sharp to view a two centimeter hole. It was a tough shot; he double zoomed and predicted where the hunter would step next. He guessed correctly and as soon as it came to view he pulled the trigger.

Smith saw as one of the Hunters fell randomly forward on its face, its partner roared in rage and surrounding Jackals fled in order not to be crushed, but some weren't lucky, and got smacked by the giant shield. The Hunter charged its gun up and looked up and started to point towards the top of his building. Smith glanced up there before continuing to fire and saw a tiny speck, obviously the same thing that the Hunter saw… Sharp. The next thing that happed was amazing, a small faint line appeared and the hunter started to fall down but the shot fired out any ways but instead up, the falling gun shot back through the Covenant and tore a hole one Elite's abdomen and took out a big number of other Covenant behind it. He smiled, "Thanks Sharp, I owe you one."

"No problem, call me if you need help again." Sharp pushed his self back over the edge to see a Purple Banshee coming straight at him. Its silver plasma turrets seemed to smile with death in them. Sharp dived to the left and the plasma bolts sizzled in the spot where he'd just recently jumped out of. Panting from the sudden movement he jumped forward to go under the belly of the banshee, but failed since it was determined to kill him it stopped to a glide. He tried weaving but the shots kept coming closer and just as they were mere inches away he heard a whistle in the air and the Banshee blew up falling fifteen feet from where he was standing. Up on the stand he saw one of the rocket Jockeys standing on a ledge, his sight blurred by the smoke coming from the Banshee and looked like a waving person. "Thanks!" Sharp yelled but the man was already aiming at another target.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: So we're here right? Now how the hell do we get out!

0550, September 19, 2552(Military Calendar)/System unknown, Halo structure (classification unknown)

Sharp sat against a wall and faced out towards the valley and stared at the Covenant encampment, they were too far away for him to snipe, but he was on watch duty. He heard the stifle laughter of men playing poker, of course they weren't "really" laughing, they'd lost almost two hundred men over the battle, they had been forced to pull back out of their pushed out half circles at ground level. But they'd barred it down by now so only way to get to them was by air, he wouldn't be too surprised if they were calling in for transports this second.

"God damn it! I lost again!" Sharp heard a clatter and a fist slam against the wall, "Ok, here's your damn money, I give up." Sharp heard a ping of money being dropped and then the man storming out of the "room". He smiled; at least some of the people were trying to have a good time. He ran his hand across the surprisingly smooth ground and then kept on looking out. They'd used most of their hidden locus anti-tank mines, but it was a hell of a lot of troops that the Covenant had. Sharp was tired but he stayed up squinting around, he was thinking of how his life would've been without the war. Without the Covenant; his mind came across Mary who at the moment was taking a quick nap in one of the middle compartments in the room. He played around with the image of Mary but then pushed her out of his mind. He went back to thinking about how screwed they'd be once the Covenant would land on top of the base with their troops. He was starting to think that they should simply just move out.

Lucas was smoking his cigar dangerously small. He'd been looking over the all the battle tactics that he'd be able to pull out of his ass against the Covenant, and none of them were too good. Creton was suggesting a couple things, but most of them seemed far fetched. He walked out of the room and to the "balcony" he leaned over the edge and looked down at the Covenant weapons, he'd recently ordered for his men to collect as many Covenant weapons that they could. They'd found a couple shade turrets, a couple hand carried fuel rod cannons, but not much. They'd found a grand total of five hundred thirty three plasma grenades through out the battle field. He also had his men repair some of the sensors that Creton used to monitor the battle field. He personally wasn't too happy at the results of the battle. He sighed and put his forehead at rest on his hands dropping his cigar out of his mouth to the ground below. He blew out the smoke slowly and continued listening to Creton as he ran down ideas.

Private Pragu pushed the last piece of heavy weight onto the pile which now served as a new barricade to keep the Covenant out. When he turned around to grab the last piece of the scavenged heavy blocks of metal etc, some even came from hunters' shields. What he saw shocked him, his friends Private Evan and Private Cal were on the floor blood spilling out of their necks, he was about to yell out when suddenly a shimmer ran at him and slit his throat. He clutched at it, blood flowing out freely; he looked forward with a bewildered face around to seem what seemed like fifty shimmers through out the area, falling down on his face he died.

*

Zume 'Falsemee was a special operations commander, he smiled as he watched the vermin fall down, he let the body drop and blood continued to slowly run out. "Let's get moving, I want the five that I'd selected earlier getting this blocking open so our men can get through, and stay here and guard it until everyone else arrives. For the rest of us, we're going hunting!" Zume clicked off his speaker and ran up the spiraling ramp to get the first kill.

Sharp was about to doze off when he heard a scream and then men knocking things over along with some pistol shots with assault rifle shots being fired off. "We're under attack hel-" The man was cut off with a knife sticking through his neck. Sharp was already running towards the source of the noise holstering his Sniper rifle along the way and whipping out his Assault rifle out. As he ran in he was almost killed when a knife went flying past his head. He didn't waste any more time. He aimed for the shimmers, he only saw three Elite bodies, but he saw many human ones. He glanced around him, and saw that now the Humans were alert. A few men had been asleep, but were scrambling around bare footed or without their shirts on shooting at the Covenant. He saw Lucas putting up a show in the open with his back to Joe and Smith. Suddenly a plasma grenade ignited around one of the shimmers and flew at the threesome. It ironically landed in such a spot that it bonded both Smith's and Joe's arm together, they tried ripping it off but it was too late, Lucas had managed to start running away but the blast sent him flying and the other two blew up.

Shooting covering fire Sharp ran forward to the Commander trying to pick him up, and bring him to safety. He was dragging him away when one of the shimmers ran up and put a knife into the man's back. Sharp shot a half a clip into the Elite, it roared as it fell down dead. From behind him he heard the shouts of men, "There's more and our barricades are down, we need to get out!" He looked down to see the Commander taking off his helmet.

"Take the AI," he sputtered blood, "get the hell out of here too, and try getting to Major Silva… He's trying to establish… a base…" The man died and the helmet dropped onto the ground. Sharp wasted no time, he was now the CO and while grabbing the helmet he ran back.

"Get to the Pelicans! We're leaving, retreat! Retreat!" A few men were cornered, but most of the survivors had managed to squeeze out. The Pelicans were stationed in the back section of the structure behind a wall. Since the structure was against a cliff, the Covenant couldn't really shoot at them. Sharp had radioed everyone and the Pelicans were already starting to rise up into the air with their engines roaring as they flew towards the men that were scrambling over each other to get out of the base. The first wave of Covenant soldiers were already going up onto the main floors. Some of men that were running towards the now landed Pelicans were shot down. The 8 surviving Pelicans flew across the sky away from the lost base towards where Major Silva was stationed at the butte to become the new Alpha Base.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Up here we're safe, but for how long?

0614 September 19, 2552(Military Calendar)/Construct Halo, Pelican en route for Alpha Base

Sharp was sitting on the edge of the bench starring out he couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever get off Halo alive. He'd recently transferred the AI crystal into his own helmet and was no confronting it with loads of questions, "Who's alive, how much fuel do we have, how much ammo for the 50 mil gun?" then he put on his helmet onto radio broadcast mode, "How much ammo and weapons do we have?"

He waited for the marines to respond, but the AI was already talking, "We have 3/8 of the fuel we started off with, we have 4559 rounds left for the gun, different results for the rest, but more or less the same, 6 missiles left. We also have Private Ian, Sergeant Jake," The AI continued but when he reached, "Lieutenant Mary," his heart beat skipped, he was relieved that she was alive but continued listening to the AI. When the list was finished he couldn't say that they hadn't gotten the better half of the men that they had had. Even though a few were dead; he was happy that Beast was still alive, though Charles was MIA, no one had seen him go down, and last that they'd seen of him was him cornered by Elites. He decided to mark him as MIA since he had to have some kind of hope in order to keep his spirits high and not to slacken in his performance.

"Sir, we have 247 Assault rifles, 300 NH-45 pistols, thirty two sniper rifles, four rocket launchers, nine BR-55 rifles, and five hundred and seven ME-6CE grenades; we also have about a three and a half clip amount per weapon. Assault rifles having the dominating amount and the BR-55 rifles having the least; that's all we have left with the exception of a few scavenged Covenant weapons." Private Sam saluted and walked back to the back of the Pelican attending to his own business. Sharp himself was worn out, he'd been sleepy before the ambush, but now, he was really sleepy. He fell back with a thump onto the Bench and put his head against a piece of the metal skeleton of the Pelican.

*

Sharp strained to see what was ahead of him, but it was extremely foggy, but the image kept coming closer and closer. He also noticed that he was wearing jeans, a white t-shirt. Finally the image sprang up and he saw Mary, he smiled at her, and she at him. He looked into her blue eyes and felt the need to just kiss her, romance wasn't exactly a thing that the military promoted. But just as he was inches from her lips, her breath falling on his own lips, when he was only inches away she disappeared but was replaced by some kind of beastly creature, but he couldn't make out what it was. It charged at him, he tried to move but he found his feet glued to the ground. He was about to be hit when suddenly he woke up to the voice of Creton. Sharp, we're being re-routed to a downed Covenant Space ship called the Resurrection. It is one of the Covenant Capitol Ships, reasons for it being on the ground are unknown. We're to attempt to capture and take over this ship. We're actually three minutes and forty two seconds away from the touch down… I suggest you prep your men, our mission." Sharp didn't waste the time, he switched over to the 324 men left alive under his command, some of the Pelicans were over crowded, but none had under capacity limit.

"Ok, everyone listen up! We're going to infiltrate a Covenant warship, I don't want any mistakes, prepare your self for close quarters." Sharp took a glance at the map that just appeared on his HUD, "I want us divided into three major squadrons: one will stay behind and protect the bay in which we will be entering into. The other two will be coordinated by Creton to reach the Control room from two different directions. Fire team Zulu, Omega, and Delta consisting of twenty men each will patrol the Ship neutralizing any threats. I will be in control of group Alpha, Beast of group Beta. The group that is staying behind is under the control of Charles, group will be named group 'D'. Everyone move out!" Sharp heard activity on his Pelican and could only imagine the activity on the more crowded Pelicans.

Frank had been transferred to become a co-pilot of Pelican S-4. They'd been re-routed about half an hour ago, but now suddenly the radio came alive with the voice of Creton, "You are to fly these Pelicans up to the bay hanger doors, if they don't open up, use as much firepower as it takes to break through the door on the far right. Missiles will do it quickly and effectively. Once your men have been dropped off, give the Pelican's control over to me, Creton out." Frank adjusted the stability on the wings in order to keep the Pelican from tilting too much from the huge amount of activity in the back. He glanced over to ground below the bulky Pelican, it was going by fast in a blur almost, when he looked back up as they rounded a cliff they saw a Covenant Warship floating about seventy meters off the ground. "Holy..." he didn't need to finish, the ship was enormous, and it was by far defiantly the biggest Covenant warship he'd ever seen. It had hundreds of Plasma turrets and many pods for its plasma missiles.

"Do not worry, I've disguised us as a group of transports returning early for the time being, but don't lag too far behind, I don't know how long they'll believe it." The actual pilot of the particular Pelican, Warrant Officer James Frigneck pushed the throttle a bit further. Frank hoped and prayed that his luck from before was still with him. Luckily they'd made it to the hanger doors, once there they stopped and hoped they'd open up for the Pelicans. He saw a bit of movement and he saw an Elite running to warn the rest of them, but it was too late, they doors were already opening. The turrets were already under the control of Creton who was using the guns extremely effectively making every shot count.

James eased the throttle and the Pelican started to drop like a rock, but he flipped around his thrusters to be aiming at the ground and stopped only a few feet off the ground. Finally he lowered the Pelican and it bounced and finally settled on the ground. He heard burst shots from men filing out of the Pelican and some return plasma fire, some directed at the Pelicans, but it wasn't enough. Soon the humans had full control of the bay. And Creton had set up the Pelicans trough out the room so they'd act as turrets. The Covenant had already attempted to lock down the room but Creton kept the doors open so Sharp and his men could make through.

Sharp was running with his men that had been chosen for him by Creton. The men were running behind him to keep up, a few had managed to go in front of him, he saw a dead jackal with its shield deactivated. As he ran by he scooped it up and looked for a button to activate it. He soon found a red button and pressed it. He was satisfied with a hum and then a shield popped up. He de-activated it. A few others had had the same idea.

'Isagnarok was hiding with his troops along side the walls they were against pillars trying to keep themselves discreet with their camouflage. The humans ran past them without noticing, once they were past him and his men he clicked his radio twice, a signal for his men to move out. They quietly ran for the Humans, which were soon to be delayed by a group of visible Covenant waiting for them.

Sharp was running when suddenly a plasma shot went right past him and hit a marine in the arm. Everyone was instantly behind anything they could get behind and were in a full fledged battle with a group of Covenant in front of them. Sharp shot bursts out of his Assault rifle into the lines of the Covenant and threw a plasma grenade into their midst. In return the Covenant threw two back. His grenade took out a row of grunts and one Elite, while most of the Marines had managed to get out of the grenades' way. Only one Marine was unfortunate enough to have the plasma grenade land on his face. Being smarter then most he rather not take out his fellow men with him and ran at the Covenant troops like a Kamikaze from World War II. He managed to take out a grunt but that was it. Sharp kept on firing bursts from his assault rifle and was mad at the fact that the corridor that he was in lacked space for the fight. He heard some one yell out, "We're being attacked from behind! Those Bastards have camouflage!"

Sharp kept firing at the majority of the Covenant force, since his back was hopefully covered. "Re-routing Fire team Zulu to assist you temporarily." The emotionless voice of Creton spoke out, but as emotionless as it was, it still gave Sharp some kind of relief. He fired off a couple shots into an elite, his assault rifle stopped for one second and it auto reloaded putting in a new clip and he could continue to hose down on the Covenant. Shortly there after Zulu showed up and helped them with their back and helped them push the remaining Covenant back to where they came from. Zulu immediately left to go attend to another errand that Creton had assigned to them. Sharp didn't mind having the AI give commands, especially since he gave them it so fast.

"Ok, keep it tight, once we're in the Control room stick to the walls, left side is only side advancing in order keep cross fire to the minimum, let's move!" Sharp saw an orange arrow appear on his HUD. He ran towards it along with the rest of his men. There was a transparent set of letters in the top right corner saying that his group had had lost twenty nine out of its 80 men. He was upset about the number, but at least they were faring better then Beast's group, he'd been getting constant reports from Creton over the time like a news line running down at the bottom of his HUD. His group along with him came to halt once they arrived in front of a decently large purple door. Supposedly blocking his path from the Control center; he walked up to the door, but it didn't open. He took a quick look at it and called up an explosive specialist from behind, "I want that door open, do you have what you need to do it?" The man stared at the door for a second.

"Yes, I have what I need, it'll be a second." The man ran up, examined the door, scratching his chin and deciding where to put everything, and then whipped out a "bomb" and attached it to the door, he then put one plasma grenade in one corner, and another in the left corner.

"Get ready for a fire fight!" Sharp yelled to his men, he heard the shuffling of feet and a few clicks.

"Fire in the hole!" yelled out the man and the explosives blew up in a stunning flash of white making everyone up close temporarily blind. Once his vision recovered though, he didn't see what he wanted, all he saw was the door standing there with a mocking, seemingly unharmed surface. Sharp cursed and walked away.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Once upon a time, there was an invulnerable wall…

1100 Hours, September 19, 2552(Military Calendar)/ Unknown System, On the Construct Halo on board Covenant Warship Resurrection

Sharp and his men had just repelled the fourth wave of Covenant troops, the ship had sent a distress signal a long time ago for help, there'd been many troops coming to try to retake the ship, but the humans held a death grip on to it; indeed many humans had died trying to keep the ship under their control. The numbers were starting to dwindle like water in your canteen does when you're in the desert for a while. Creton had been forced to re-arrange the defenses, now there were fifteen commandeered Banshees constantly patrolling the ship, Creton had long ago disabled the cannons, all that was left was to take down the door and they'd be in. Except that the door seemed to be unbreakable. They'd tried many things to brake down the door, but like most of the material the ship had been built out of were extremely strong. The door now was under a new barrage of ideas to break it down. Now they'd decided that enough was enough and they were going to simply wait patiently for them to come out, but of course Creton was trying to get access to the door.

Unfortunately the Covenant that was inside kept the door shut at all costs; it was their life jacket in the middle of an ocean. Several Marines stood guard at the door; Creton had long ago been transferred to a maintenance port and was trying to access the door from there. One marine was on top of a shade in the hall way keeping his aimer trained wearily on the door in case of it opening. Sharp kept on walking with his stiff legs towards the hanger bay. He saw a few wounded men being tended to by Medics in the hall ways, one of the few places that were safe for them. When he came into the

Unfortunately the Covenant that was inside kept the door shut at all costs; it was their life jacket in the middle of an ocean. Several Marines stood guard at the door; Creton had long ago been transferred to a maintenance port and was trying to access the door from there. One marine was on top of a shade in the hall way keeping his aimer trained wearily on the door in case of it opening. Sharp kept on walking with his stiff legs towards the hanger bay. He saw a few wounded men being tended to by Medics in the hall ways, one of the few places that were safe for them. He kept walking at a casual pace towards the Bay Hanger that Beast had been assigned to guard with a group of twenty men, only thirteen other then Beast were left alive. Sharp passed through one of the automatic doors, as he approached it slid apart noiselessly as he came up to it. Spending his free time thinking about random things, one of them was the whole thing about the Covenant and purple. Just as the door slid shut behind him he heard Creton, "I've managed to open the door, it's under assault right now."

"Ok, thanks for the information." Sharp muttered and started running back to the corridor in which the attack was taking place. As he was running around the corridor he saw a big number big number of bodies littering the floor. To his relief was that by far most of the bodies weren't human, but instead Covenant bodies were scattered around. Most of the fighting had subsided, only a little of the original Covenant forces were still fighting, a few had surrendered. Those who had surrendered were now being led by ten armed Marines towards the cells which were shown on their HUD displays with a orange arrow. Sharp returned back to the real world and heard the whine of plasma flying over head and the roar of assault rifles as they answered back. Sharp ran up to the shade for cover, leaning out he set his sight onto anything that moved.

*

Beast was sitting a purple barrel and was watching the battle from the perspective of PFC Brian Hudston. The man was towards the front of the battle line and was advancing slowly towards the cover of the Elites, the mans pale white hand disappeared and when it returned it was clutching two fragment grenades. With a fast set of motions he threw out the pins and rolled the grenades on the ground towards the closest Elite hiding spot. Two seconds passed, and then a explosion went off blowing bits off the purple wall and the unfortunate Elite's blood was splattered all around on the walls around. The video feed went out, "Beast, it's your platoon's turn to do a search, so select ten people to pilot to go into banshees and the rest stays behind in this position."

"Ok," Beast switched his helmet to broad cast mode, "I want nine volunteers to come with me, we're going to patrol, Sergeant Blake is in command while I'm gone, let's move." Fifteen men started racing for Banshees. When Beast arrived to one of the Banshees he opened it up and got in. He was tired of just sitting back, he wanted to get out. He busied himself with getting familiar with the aircraft, he knew how to fly though, Creton had explained earlier. Once he felt roomy he spoke up, "Ok, everyone, let's get flying, Creton, I want you to put some markers up here for us." Nearly instantly there was a bright orange arrow showing the way. Feeling ready Beast pushed the throttle back and the banshee smoothly lifted off the ground and started to slowly drift backwards but it still went up. He tugged to the right making the Banshee pivot and then once he was facing towards the door he pushed the throttle and when he started to fly forward the doors silently slid apart and then he pushed the throttle to the max and the Banshee sped through the now open purple door followed by nine other Banshees.

He felt the cold air streaming in through the cracks and small holes throughout the Banshee's exterior. As he pulled up to go higher in altitude he felt his body being pulled towards the ground by gravity. He leveled off and felt the Banshee tremble slightly as some turbulence.

*

Sharp was walking back and forth throughout the control room as people where scavenging supplies and others were making sure that the Covenant that had surrendered properly cleaned up the bodies of Covenant and Human alike. All the Covenant bodies were to be thrown off the "ship" and the Human bodies were being transferred to the best thing to a freezer, a room filled with Methane which the grunts used to sleep in without their armor on them. The human bodies were stowed away and filled up most of the room. Sharp stopped over a dead body of a particularly young marine. He felt a pang of sorrow and a bent down to see if the mans dog tag had been taken, it had been. Sharp closed the man's eyes that seemed to go down for ever. He then stood up and let an Elite at gun point pick up the body and take it back to the room. "Staff Sergeant Beast is out with a group of nine other men patrolling the area, he has spotted a swamp and a downed Pelican in there, and he is going down to investigate. Casualty report for the last battle is a total of 32 marines, twenty are dead and the rest are wounded. I haven't been able to contact Alpha base, I've managed to communicate with the Covenant Engineers, they don't seem to have a side and will be willing to help us. I'm going to recall Staff Sergeant Beast and his squad, we're leaving Halo on this ship."

"What about the Master Chief and Cortana?" Sharp questioned being doubtful that leaving would be the best solution for their current state.

"The Master Chief and Cortana haven't been responding, I've failed to contact them but I haven't stopped. I have been able to contact Alpha Base though Wesley has told me to get this ship to them for extraction." Sharp nodded, and then finally agreed.

He breathed in, "Ok, let's get a move onto it, set the men into tactical positions, I'm going to see how much supplies we have." With that Sharp turned around and started heading towards the hanger bay which they'd used to enter earlier. Later he would find out that for the 176 men that were now left alive after the numerous battles that his men and he engaged, they'd be able to survive off the food supplies for two months with a possible +/- of one week. Sharp sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, he sat back on one of the benches in the Pelican. He switched on his radio and contacted Staff Sergeant Lenny Kirk. "Lenny, you're taking over until Beast returns, I'm going to take a nap I really need to, any ways, tell the men to check the ship in case any Covenant are taking cover, over."

Five seconds went by and then, "Roger that, I'll be waking you up in four hours, I'm going to give some of my men so R&A the rest will search with me, over." Sharp clicked twice on his radio to acknowledge and fell down asleep on the bench almost instantly.


End file.
